Aime Alley Card - Author The Tiger Bells, Olympic Legends from Tennessee State

Aime Alley Card, author of The Tigerbelles: Olympic Legends from Tennessee State, talks about the amazing 1960 Tennessee State women’s sprinters, who attained Olympic glory at the 1960 games in Rome.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
This is What's at Risk with MikeChristian on WBZ Boston's news radio. Hi,
Mike Christian, here of What's atRisk. First up on tonight's show,
Amy ali Card, author of theTiger Bells Olympic Legends from Tennessee State,
talks about the amazing nineteen sixty TennesseeState women's sprinters who attained Olympic glory

(00:26):
at the nineteen sixty Games in Rome. Our second segment features Nadine gob and
Carla Small, co founders of EarlyBird Education, speaking passionately about their mission
to support young people, parents,and teachers in the early identification and prevention
of reading disorders and dyslexia. Forthe past several years, Amy ali Card

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has been researching, interviewing, andwriting about the Tennessee State Tiger Bells.
This elite group of talented women includedWilma Rudolph, Barbara Jones, Lucinda Williams,
Martha Hudson, Willie B. White, and Shirley Crowder, women who
were once and still should be knownworldwide. She conducted and reviewed hundreds of

(01:17):
hours of interviews and read just asmany books and articles ranging from concurrent to
retrospective. She is a non fictioneditor for literary magazines and a board member
for the Women's National Book Association.She serves on her town's Cultural Council,
supporting educational programs. She is alsothe author of and Beneath It All With

(01:40):
Love, My Path back Home Againthrough breast Cancer. We're here with Amy
Ali Carr, the author of theTiger Bells Olympic Legends from Tennessee State.
Amy, How you doing good?Do great? Thank you so much for
having me great, thanks for joiningus. Maybe a good place to start

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is just to tell our listeners alittle bit about your background. So I
am a writer. This is mysecond book, and I work with Pantyra's
Literary magazine and Cambridge and have acouple of other kind of writing projects that
I'm involved in writing and editing.And a mom with two kids, northsh

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Or Boston. So that's me.You wrote a book, and it's called
Tiger Bells, which was the nameof the track team for Tennessee State for
many years, and it chronicles thenineteen sixty Tennessee State University all black women's
sprint team, which really excelled atthe nineteen sixty Rome Olympics. They were

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quite well known during that time,maybe a lot because of Wilma Rudolph,
but in general because of their accomplishments. What actually inspired you to write that
story? So I grew up inNashville, which is where the Tennessee State
Tiger Bells are from. And mygrandfather was a track coach at Vanderbilt,
and he became friends with Coach Temple, two track coaches in the same town,

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and he saw the tiger bells riseto international prominence in the nineteen fifties
up into the nineteen sixty Olympics.So I grew up knowing about that story,
and I was always surprised when otherpeople didn't know about them, about
the tiger bells. And my daughterwas working on a school project one time

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and I started telling her about theTiger Bells as a potential subject, and
she was just enthralled by the idea. And I thought, Okay, there's
this new generation that also can knowabout the Tiger bells. There's a new
generation. And I started digging intothe story, and the more uncovered,
the more I felt really strongly thattheir story should be shared. Your grandfather,

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Ernest Dally, was the track coachat Vanderbilt, did he tell you
stories about the Tiger Bells when youwere young. Unfortunately he passed away before
I was born, but my dadwas on the team at the time in
nineteen sixty and so I always heardabout the Tiger Balls and just their legacy.
They had kind of a legacy inour family, just of being admired

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as just the standard. So youhave track in your blood if your grandfather
coached and your dad was a trackathlete. I do. I do,
And both of my older siblings werereally amazing runners, and I am not,
unfortunately, but I have been aroundthe sport my entire life, and

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so I'm very familiar with the sport, even though I wasn't good at it
myself. But I really do knowwhat it takes to be a runner and
what that particular sport means, andthe kind of dedication that it takes and
the ability to really dig in.Tiger Bells were led by legendary coach at
Temple. He was coach for along time, starting in the fifties and

(05:00):
going into the eighties. What washis background and why was he so driven
to make these women successful? Well, he kind of fell into coaching the
Tiger Bells by accident. He wasa student at Tennessee State and an athlete
at Tennessee State. He had beenrecruited to play to run track himself,
and he was graduating and looking forcoaching opportunity, and he was living in

(05:25):
the dorm after graduation, and hegot called into the head of school's office
and he thought he was going toget in trouble because he had overstayed the
graduation in the dorm. He thoughthe was going to get kicked out of
the dorm. But instead they haverecommended him to coach the women's track team.
And he thought, you know,why not. It was an opportunity
and he'd have a problem with it, and he didn't think that he had

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a lot to add at that time, but he thought he would give it
a shot. And they gave himone hundred and fifty dollars a year and
an upgrade to his dorm room,and so he said sure, and then
he never left his entire career.He coached the Tiger Bells, and so
that dedication really came later after hegot into the team, started coaching them

(06:11):
and saw what they were capable ofand what they could do. That was
really when he dug in and hehad plenty of other opportunities throughout his career,
and he never left. Presumably theypaid him more than one hundred and
fifty a year down through the years. It was a slow growth at Tennessee
State, though. It took hima long time to earn every incremental increase

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over time. It was painful forhim. Yeah, and he started in
the fifties or maybe the late forties. I forget when he actually started.
He started coaching in nineteen fifty two. He had started at TENNESCV in forty
eight. What was his drive tomake these women so successful? He was

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obviously passionate about it. He spenthis whole lif life doing it. He
was an effective coach, for sure. Was he a good recruiter of athletes?
Did you just see potential in peoplethat maybe others didn't see? What
was the magic? I think itwas both of those things. That the
thing that really sparked the team,he said, was recruiting Mayfags and may
Fags before she came to Tennessee Statehad already been to the Olympics. She

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came after just after the nineteen fiftytwo she'd already signed down to Tennessee State
but just after the nineteen fifty twoOlympics, and she'd been in nineteen forty
eight, and she was really asuperstar. And when he recruited her to
come run at Tennessee State, thatreally started off. So he was able
to scope out that top talent andattract them to Tennessee State. I think

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it was just because of his dedicationto the team that they were attracted.
And then Lucien to Williams, oneof the superstars on the team, said
that he saw things in us thatwe didn't even see in ourselves, and
so that drive working hard, thethings that he was asking of them to
do in their training, it wasbecause he knew that they had it in

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them. Now, just to shifttopics a little bit, You're right about
the team's success despite the challenges ofcompeting in the Jim Crow era in the
South. What were some of thosechallenges, because I'm sure there are experiences
that no athlete today could even imagine. What were the barriers that they had
to overcome during that period of time, particularly in the South. Exactly,

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so the big meat every year thatthey that they would go to was in
Tuskegee, and that was in Alabama. So from Nashville to Tuskegee, you
know, it took a little while. They would have to hack up their
meals and get a full tinke ofgas and just not stop along the way
because they never knew and the jimcross south where it would be safe to

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stop to use the bathroom, toget gassed, to get some food.
They also they went in nineteen sixtyto Texas for the Olympic Trial and the
national meets, and that was areally challenging trip. They didn't have the
same they the lodging facility for theblack athletes was different than the white athletes

(09:13):
that can stay together. And ofcourse the conditions were not as good.
You know, it wasn't separate butequal. It was not equal. It
was not the same conditions that theyhad. Food was different, but still
they were expected to perform against athletesthat had better food, better lodgings.
They had to travel overnight. Sometimeswhen they would go up to Madison Square

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Garden, which was another place wherethey would have a lot of events,
they would have to travel overnight becausethey never knew where they were going to
be able to stay. And alsofunding was an issue to be able to
have the hotel rooms that they wouldcaravan and two station wagons all piled down
with all their gear, all theirequipment, travel overnight and then have to
run and perform and compete at thatelite level. But they did it,

(10:01):
and they were dominant and the sportfrom the mid fifties for decades. We'll
take a quick break from our interviewwith Amy Card to revisit comments from the
Guardian Sport blog about Ed Temple.Look at Temple, it told his first
set of female college athletes. Ifthe boys can do it, you can

(10:24):
do it. He also exhorted themnot to overlook their studies. Athletics opens
the door for you, he said, but education keeps them open. His
plans for developing his squad were couragedby his college principal, whose ambitions for
the establishment included winning an integrated titlein any sport. Under Temple, the

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Tiger Bells became that team. Thegratified principle presented them with an old DeSoto
station wagon to take them to distanttrack meets, with the coach as their
chauffeur. There is a statue ofTemple outside a sports stadium in Nashville,
a Tennessee state track suit and apair of spikes are on display in the
National Museum of African American History andCulture, but the old Coach's best memorial

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will always be the site. Insnatches of newsreel film were more vividly stored
in the memory of Wilma Rudolph,grown strong and tall and swift in the
face of society's odds, rising fromthe blocks and the Roman sunshine, to
burn off her pursuers with devastating elegance, and in the process recalibrating the world's

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ideas of what a black woman couldbe. And now back to our discussion
with Amycard and not unlike baseball playersand basketball players and others during that era,
it was a difficult time if youwere a black athlete. Now there
were six women that you primarily focusedon, Wilma Rudolph, Barbara Jones,
Senda Williams, Martha Hudson, WillieB. White, and Shirley Crowder.

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Were you able to get a senseof how they worked with each other,
their teamwork, how they viewed eachother, Were they friends, were they
close? What was that dynamic?Like they were a family? They really
but like a family, they wouldbe really competitive with each other, they
would There was a really intense competitionbetween Lily White and Margaret Matthews that I

(12:24):
go into pretty gets detail about it. They kind of regularly beat each other's
world records in the long time.But then they were the best of friends,
and they were so close that theystay in touch for the rest of
their lives. They were once youwere in Tiger Bell, you were always
a Tiger Bell, and you know, they went to all each other's major

(12:45):
life events. So it was definitelysuch a strong bond that it was like
family. Wilma Rudolph was the onethat was most well known. She won
the one hundred meters, the twohundred, and they all won a gold
in the four by one. Wasshe the leader? How did they view
her? Because she really was thefirst major superstar in women's track. She

(13:07):
was. She was definitely a breakoutstar and a world I think you're right,
I think the first real breakout superstar. But she wasn't on the team
a leader. She would be thefirst person to tell you that it depended
on the rest of the team toget her where she was, and she

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Barbara Jones would say when Wilma cameto Tennessee State I beat her. She
was. So they had a mottoon the team that they didn't graduate from
Tennessee State winning. Their job wasto pull the younger women up behind them
to be better than them. WhenWilma came to Tennessee State, she had

(13:50):
a more raw talent. She wasn'ttrained in the way to have that perfect
form and tried. Barbara Jones describestying her arms down to keep her arms
in line, and you know,she had all sprattled out, she said,
and her knees would go in alittle bit. So she was a

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little bit they called knock need.And they put weights on the outside of
her shoes to straighten up her gate. And so they worked. These were
her peers working with her, notonly her coach, and they worked hard
with her. And Wilma always complainedabout her start because she was so tall.

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She thought that she was really slowgetting out of the starting blocks.
And Martha husband was so she wasalso on her relay team, very small.
She was under five feet tall andWilma was almost six feet tall.
And so Wilma was always jealous ofMartha Hudson's starts. And so they worked
together to you know, constantly repeatthat getting out of the starting blocks faster

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and faster and past her and soand only even for little things like hanging
onto her passport. Lucien to Williamswas the one who held onto Wilma's passport
because nobody thought that she was goingto remember, she was going to be
able to keep track of it.So she was an amazing talent. But
I don't think that you know,she was the leader later on in her

(15:18):
time, but she was kind ofyoung and green and all when she was
really bursting onto the scene with hertalent. She ultimately became a leader and
a very inspirational person. Unfortunately,she died relatively young. She overcame we're
speaking about Wilma Rudolph now, sheovercame childhood diseases and many health challenges.

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That's right. She had she wasborn prevent sure and she had several illness.
Says polio was the one that theythink that had an impact on her
leg. And so her leg wasin a brace until she was nine years
old, and then she went toher first Olympics when she was sixteen.
So between having her brace her legand a braith at nine years old to

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being an elite athlete where she wona bronze medal in the nineteen fifty six
Olympic as a part as part ofthe pot By one hundred relay team.
It was just an incredible accomplishment.It was like she had been held back
for so long, being ill inher childhood, and then when she was
finally able to run, no onecould stop her. She was freed.

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I also read that Barbara Jones wasactually the youngest gold medalist ever at fifteen
years old, which is astounding tome. I never knew that fifteen years
old. And she was there inthe nineteen That was in the nineteen fifty
fifty two Olympics in Helsinki, andshe was there with May Fags And that

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was before she was at san SeeState. You know, she was from
Chicago and she was running with theclub there. But then in nineteen fifty
six she didn't make the Olympic team, and you know, she was devastated.
But May Fags to Barbara Jones,you need to get yourself to Tennessee
State and get some training. Andshe did, and she came to Tennessee

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State in time for you know afew years. I had of been nineteen
sixty Olympics, and she had herchance to redeem herself there and she did.
But yeah, she was a diva. She called herself the diva on
the team. She has a bigpersonality still and from that early win.
You know, was the youngest youngestAmerican woman to win gold in the Olympics.

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Yeah, that's a pretty amazing statI don't know that there's anybody younger
to this day that's won a goldmedal, I think, if I'm not
mistaken, Barbara, Lucinda, andMartha are all still alive. Yeah,
yes they are. They are.Were you able to interview them for this
book and talk to them? Italked to I talked to them, except
Martha Hudson is she's has Alzheimer's nowand she's not available. But I definitely

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talked to Barbara and Lucinda. Theykind of are at that stage in life
where they feel like they've done aton of interviews and they are saying,
you know, go for it,find out find all those old interviews.
They are there there, you doyour research. And so I was lucky
enough to connect up with Dwight Lewis, who is a longtime reporter for the

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Tennessee and he had gone to TennesseeState and he had been gathering interviews with
all of the Tennessee c athletes forhis entire career, and he let me
have access to some of those,and I felt like there was something really
special about those current interviews. Youknow, the interviews when they were younger,
and these they were you know,when you're older and you're looking back

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at something and you kind of justwant to make peace with it. You
want everything to have have perspective inyour life. But when you're young and
you're not, you're not so hesitantabout talking about rivalries on the team or
our little some of those kind ofstories that add that spark of interest,
and you're also not afraid to saywhat was making you mad about some of

(19:03):
the injustices that they faced and discriminationnot only just from the Jim Crow South
but also being women athletes. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of
sense, because the interviews when you'rein the midst of your career, in
the heat of battle and competition,you're going to be a lot more energetic
and effusive about what's going on.Right. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,

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some of those are great. They'reall in their eighties now, probably mid
eighties, they are, so werethey celebrated for their accomplishments in a meaningful
way in nineteen sixty Were you ableto discern that? So they were at
the Olympics, they were kind ofthe media darlings at the Olympics. I'm
not sure if it was only becauseof their accomplishments. They were definitely good.

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I think they were just kind ofthe ones to watch at that Olympics.
They were hanging out with Cassius Clayand everybody wanted to be a part
of the Tiger Bells. It tooka little while for them to get that
acknowledgement, even within their school andtheir community. For example, when they
won their first national championship in nineteenfifty five, coach Temple was just sure

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that that was going to change thedynamics. They were going to get all
the support they needed from the school. They were going to get scholarships,
they were going to get a realtrack because they were still at the time
practicing on a truck that only wenthalfway around. It didn't go fully around,
and so they would you know,run halfway around the track and then
maybe running in dirt. They wantedto do a four forty, but it

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didn't happen that way. He camehome and they said, you know,
good job, but it's still women'strack. You know, it's still not
not the thing that they really wantedto focus a lot on. So I
think that was really the case aboutit being women's sports. Track was just
not the marquee sport that it shouldhave been, and so football and basketball

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kind of always took the build thestadiums, you know, they sold a
lot to get to those events andwritten about more in the paper. Crack
was more popular then than it istoday. Unfortunately, we've lost interest in
track as we progressed into today's sportsera. Are the Tiger Bills somewhat forgotten
today? Yeah, I think it'strue. I mean people, there are

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lots of people that I've heard ofWilma Rudolph. I mean, it's less
it's less common for people to haveheard of her in the younger generations.
But I do think it's so importantfor people to know whose shoulders they stand
on. And they played a majorpart in women having Title nine and Title

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nine changed the game for women's athleticshaving to equally fund men's and women's athletics
and colleges and state and state runinstitutions are betterally of funding institutions. It
made a space for women to beable to really participate in more equal level.
We're still working on it, butmore equal level. And they by

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proving how strong they were and howthey could represent their country on an international
stage, helped to prove that women'ssports were worth the investment. Now there
were forty Olympians and twenty three totalsprint medals over time for coach Temple at
Tennessee State. And I know wetalked about this a little bit before,
but what his focus was. Wasthere a secret to that he was able

(22:27):
to recruit more great athletes? Whatwas the reason for all of that?
Because that spanned decades, not justa few years. That's right, it
was his entire career. I mean, what I think his special coaching skill
was was that he cared so muchabout his team. He was invested in
them, He believed in them,and they wanted to perform for him.

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But he also was able to seekout the players that had the athletes that
had that internal's work that he waslooking for. He needed somebody not just
to have the raw talent, tohave that grit that you need to be
able to push yourself that extra mile. He has the famous quote that I
just love. It's paraphrasing anybody says, I'm tired. It's not the time

(23:10):
to quit. I'm tired. Isthe time to dig in and see if
you can find that thing within yourselfthat's going to push you further. And
I just love that where it's youknow, the average person is going to
stop when they're tired, and he'slooking for the people that can keep going
and find that extra determination. Hehad these strict rules that they had to
bye bye, but everyone loved himso much and I couldn't square that because

(23:36):
to me, he sounded like atough coach. He was like a father
to them, and they knew thatthey could come to him with their problems.
He was a counselor. He wasyou know so many who was always
looking out for their best interest andhe was there. Yeah, whatever that
combination of things was, it's certainlyborn out in the success that they had
over many many years. So what'snext for you, Amy? I know

(23:59):
this book was just released. You'reprobably focused on promoting it for a while.
I'm guessing, yeah, trying totry to get this one out into
the world. I'm not gonna quitpishing this at least until the Olympics this
year. But then I have anotherstory that's more of a Boston area story
about a navigator for a clipper shipwho was a woman in the eighteen fifties

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who is really kind of drawing myattention. I think that one might be
fun to work on over the summerand get out on the water and do
some clippershup research. That's great.Well, listen, we wish you the
best with this book. It's theTiger Bells Olympic Legends from Tennessee State.
We've been talking to Amy card Amy. Thank you so much, really appreciated.
Thanks so much for having me.We'll be right back after the news

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